page_title: Karl Klaus von der Decken
section_title: Footnotes
hierarchical_section_title: Karl Klaus von der Decken / Footnotes
caption_attribution_description: Giant Lobelia, Lobelia gregoriana, found in the Afro-Alpine zone of Mount Kenya.
context_page_description: Baron Karl Klaus von der Decken was a German explorer of eastern Africa and the first European to attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
  Following a stint in the military, von der Decken first travelled to eastern Africa in May 1860. There he explored the region around Lake Nyasa, only a year after David Livingstone had been the first European to reach the area. The following year, von der Decken set out from Mombasa to survey the Kilimanjaro massif. During the journey inland, he met the young English geologist Richard Thornton – who had left Livingstone's Zambezi expedition – and invited him to accompany him to Kilimanjaro. When the massif loomed into view, it was the first time it had been sighted by Europeans since Johannes Rebmann had been the first European to see it in 1848.
  Von der Decken and Thornton surveyed the area, accurately estimating Mount Kilimanjaro's height to be around 20,000 feet above sea level. However, when their party attempted to climb the mountain, poor weather kept them from gaining any more than a few thousand feet.
context_section_description: Gary Firth: in Target 1992 Livingstone was impressed by Thornton's early work Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine Portrait of the Geologist Richard Thornton Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
  Translated in Tanganyika Notes and Records no.64, March 1965.
caption: Lobelia deckenii at Kilimandjaro
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